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Sunday, July 27, 2014

My letter to the NYTimes RE Hope in the Abattoir, The Shared Destiny of Israel and Gaza by Roger Cohen

Israeli Arabs caught in the middle of Gaza war: Jafar Farah, director of Mossawa, the advocacy center for Arab citizens
in Israel, said Israeli Arabs had a particularly hard time because they
could see the suffering and growing extremism on both sides: "What the army is doing in Gaza is just creating more enemies. Our identification is not with Hamas, it is with the Palestinian
people." In this Friday, March 30, 2012, file photo, Arab Israeli protesters wave
Palestinian flags as they gather to mark the annual Land Day event in
the Arab Village of Dir Hana, northern Israel. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

RE: Hope in the Abattoir, The Shared Destiny of Israel and Gaza by
Roger Cohen

Dear Editor,

It feels true, as poet Seamus Heaney observed, that “It is difficult
at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive
as an abattoir.”

However there are valuable lessons we have learned from history that
have shaped modern law and social attitudes to help secure more
freedom, more justice, more prosperity, and more peace for more
people.

Right now both Jews-preferred Israel and Islamists all through out
the region have been contributing to a horrifically tragic and
increasingly dangerous situation whereby there is substantially less
freedom, justice, prosperity or peace for many people.

Countless children and their parents are being traumatized and/or
maimed, wounded, killed because of the escalating Israel-Palestine
conflict and all the many armed religious fanatics influenced by
that conflict.

Ending the Israel-Palestine conflict with a just and lasting peace
shaped by two fully secular, fully sovereign nation states, one
called Israel and one called Palestine living side by side in peace
and security, is the only way to stop the many negative
ramifications of the Israel-Palestine conflict from getting even
worse.

The American
Task Force on Palestine supports Palestinian
institution-building, good governance, anti-corruption
measures, economic development, and improved
living standards. ATFP holds that these same values are
relevant to the broader Arab world, and that the question of
Palestine is inextricably linked to regional realities and
developments.

ATFP provides an independent voice for
Palestinian-Americans and their supporters and advances
human rights and peace. It categorically and unequivocally
condemns all violence against civilians, no matter the cause
and who the victims or perpetrators may be.

July 8, 2014,
Washington, DC -- The American Task Force on Palestine
(ATFP) today called on Israel and the Palestinians to
de-escalate as quickly as possible from an increasingly
explosive situation and a moment of grave peril. Major
airstrikes on Gaza have killed numerous Palestinians,
reportedly including several children, today while another
heavy barrage of rocket fire from Gaza was launched towards
southern Israel, and at least one rocket being reportedly
shot down over Tel Aviv. Today's violence comes in the
context of tit-for-tat killings of, and attacks on, Israeli
and Palestinian teenagers in Jerusalem, widespread tensions
in the West Bank, and even growing unrest among Palestinian
citizens of Israel.

ATFP
called on all sides to demonstrate leadership and to take
immediate and concrete actions to de-escalate the growing
conflict and refrain from inflammatory rhetoric. ATFP
urged all parties to consider the negative consequences of
similar conflagrations in the past, and recall that they
did not benefit either side, militarily or politically,
but caused the deaths of countless innocent civilians,
enormous destruction of property, and widespread and
lasting misery. ATFP urged President Barack Obama and the
rest of the international community to use their good
offices to ensure that all prospects for resolving the
crisis are fully explored.